Browsing by Author "Furlong, Patrick Jonathan"

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    The Mixed Marriages Act (1949) : a theological critique based on the investigation of legislative action and church responses to this legislation
    (1985) Furlong, Patrick Jonathan; Webb, Colin de B; Villa-Vicencio, Charles
    The thesis is concerned with the nature of the interaction between church and state, and more generally between politics and religion, in the matter of so-called mixed marriages, and more particularly the debate surrounding the South African Mixed Marriages Act of 1949. The methodology of the study is interdisciplinary, dealing in detail with historical material as a basis for theological reflection and analysis. In the first chapter, marriage is dealt with generally from a theological viewpoint. Various approaches to marriage are considered, such as those in African society, the Bible, and in the Catholic and Reformation traditions. In contrast with the fertility-lineage, group-oriented ethic detected in the early part of the Old Testament and in many preliterate and patriarchal societies, a personalist and essentially 'sacramental' model of marriage is developed on the basis of New Testament teaching and later Christian theological reflection. The effects of a fertility-lineage and group-oriented ethic of marriage in South Africa are demonstrated in chapter two, which deals with the drive for anti-miscegenation laws in that country, with special reference to the role of the Afrikaans Reformed churches in this regard. The third chapter takes up this historical material, examining the nature of the initial debate on the Mixed Marriages Act in 1949-1950 and the aims of the Nationalist Government in introducing this legislation. The contrasting responses to the Act on the part of the Afrikaans Reformed churches and the more 'liberal', non-racial, mainly English-speaking churches are also considered here. In the fourth chapter the developments in the debate surrounding the Act since 1949 are discussed, with special reference to key points in the changing attitudes of the churches (especially the Afrikaans Reformed churches) to this legislation. This provides the background to the heated debate since the mid-seventies, when the Government began to show apparent signs of favouring a reformulation of apartheid which purportedly aimed at eliminating the most obviously racially biased aspects of that policy. The final chapter examines the theological assumptions of Afrikaans Reformed thought, and attempts to show how its roots in a particular view of Calvinism, Kuyperian Neo-Calvinism and the Bible result in the kind of fertility-lineage ethic which makes support for the Act possible. An effort is made to show the theological inadequacies of this thought from a Christian perspective, and to suggest an alternative, more dynamic theology, which recognizes the importance of individual choice and human rights. The impediments to such a fundamental reorientation are recognised, however, and it is argued that any major changes in position on the miscegenation laws on the part of either reformist government politicians or the Afrikaans Reformed churches in the near future will face major resistance.